Precisely how the NCAA’s new date for the start of basketball practice will affect the most important people in the equation—the players—is difficult to say.

It would seem having more time to be taught and to process the considerable volume of information coaches must present before games commence will help the players incorporate it all into their performances. But, of course, many coaches who complained for years about having to cram all this information into such a short period of time now are complaining they are worried about burning out players before the season begins.

Because that is one of the things college coaches do really well: complain.

What is certain is there are particular players who could use whatever time is available to them, because they’ll have more on their shoulders, more pressure to perform, more to prove than just about anyone in the college game.

The extra time to practice can only help these young men:

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1

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Kyle Anderson, 6-9 sophomore, UCLA

2012-13 stats: 9.7 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists

Perhaps there was some value to the UCLA program in the announcement by Anderson’s father that this probably would be Kyle’s last year in college basketball. You know: Don’t worry, high school kids, Kyle won’t be in your way should you wish to join the Bruins’ 2014 recruiting class.

But Kyle Anderson Sr. did Junior no favors at all.

The pressure on the younger Anderson to perform well this season has increased dramatically, and given that he is playing under a new coach (Steve Alford) and likely to play a great deal of the time at a new position (point guard)—well, that’s a lot for any young player to handle.

Operating mostly as a power forward last year, Anderson showed a tremendous knack for defensive rebounding. He has great length and understanding of how to leverage his physical gifts in pursuit of stray basketballs. He is not a shooter, though; he made only 41.6 percent of his attempts last season. That’s just not good enough for a 6-9 guy.

Anderson, though, always has been a terrifically gifted passer, perhaps the rarest skill of all in basketball today. He produced more assists playing primarily in the frontcourt than Michigan State’s Keith Appling did touching the basketball on every play for the Spartans.

Anderson played almost exclusively at point guard for his summer team during his pre-UCLA days, but defenses in AAU-type games don’t seek to apply the sort of ball pressure he will encounter from the best Pac-12 defenders. So he’ll need to show he can advance the ball against smaller, quicker, more aggressive players.

As a defender, Anderson will discover it’s much more difficult to hide his deficiencies at the point of attack.

Even if UCLA ultimately abandons or deemphasizes the experiment of using Anderson at the point, turning up the sense of urgency regarding his success added a layer of complication to his sophomore season that really wasn’t necessary. The NCAA no longer gives players adequate time to decide whether they should leave college basketball for the draft, but the deadline is in April, not September.

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Alex Poythress, 6-8 sophomore, Kentucky

2012-13 stats: 11.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, 0.7 assists

That Poythress’ final statistics appear somewhat attractive demonstrates the danger of judging a player merely by the numbers. Because anyone with a keen eye who watched him last season, including the coach who chose to do without him at many crucial moments, was sure to recognize that Poythress was struggling to contribute to a winning effort.

Poythress’ numbers speak more to what he is capable of achieving as a basketball player than to what he already has accomplished. He shot 58.1 percent from the floor as a freshman and converted 42.4 percent of his 3-point attempts. Even so, many Kentucky fans already have moved on and are calling for freshman James Young to start at the small forward position.

Poythress probably would be best served as an undersized power forward, but that option no longer is available with the Wildcats adding freshman Julius Randle, who’ll be among the nation’s top players this season.

So Poythress is going to have to make it work as a small forward, and as the stats suggest there is every reason to believe he can manage it. But he didn’t on his first try. A perfect illustration of his inconsistency: In crucial road games at Arkansas and Georgia, he fouled out both times and played a combined 36 minutes. In a home game against Florida to close the regular season, he played 32 minutes and grabbed 12 rebounds.

He talked after games about accepting responsibility and growing up as a player, which was a consistent theme for coach John Calipari throughout the year in regards to Poythress. Now, he’s what passes for a veteran in the UK rotation. And he’ll have to show he can manage the small forward spot.

That does not mean he has to suddenly become Julius Erving. A player can function at this spot with limited ballhandling, as Carmelo Anthony has shown for a decade in the NBA. If a player can execute the rare straight-line drive that becomes available, and more important can bounce it once or twice into an open jump shot, he can fulfill the job requirements of small forward. But he has to be able to shoot from long range to really make it work, which Poythress did in limited doses as a freshman. To truly excel, he’d have to take at least twice as many (33 attempts last season) and keep his percentage of makes in the same neighborhood.

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Andrew Wiggins, 6-8 freshman, Kansas

2012-13: McDonald’s All-American at Huntington (W.Va.) Prep

The nature of recruiting coverage and the breadth of Wiggins’ athleticism combined to make him perhaps the most hyped player ever to arrive on a college campus.

Is that possible? Yes, it is. Lew Alcindor was the most transformative high school player of all time, but in 1965 few followed high school basketball recruiting. In 2003, LeBron James deservedly became a household name while playing prep ball in Akron, but he skipped past college hoops and went directly to the NBA.

In part through his talent, in part through his decision to extend his recruitment well into the spring of 2013, Wiggins became an obsession.

So what’s all the fuss about?

Wiggins could have given the world more of a clue had he chosen to participate with either the Canada U19 national team or the senior national team, but he chose to spend the whole of his summer at KU being coached by Bill Self and his staff.

There is no doubting his athleticism. You don’t need to put him through combine-style testing to see that his first step when driving the ball and his ability to leap quickly and high rank with the best you’ve seen play basketball. Applying those qualities to the sport, though, is not an automatic process. Wiggins has not been an exceptional 3-point shooter, so defenders will back away and dare him to shoot. Some players are quick enough to blow past even a defender who is positioned several feet away, and he very well may be one of those, but it’s generally tougher to impact the game in this manner.

He’ll also have to learn how to be an effective rebounder when he isn’t often stationed near the goal at either end. Rebounding was a big part of what made him such an exciting prospect, but it’s a different process when playing in a college structure.

What genuinely could ignite a dominant freshman season for Wiggins is the NCAA rules committee’s promise to alter how it officiates the block/charge call. If defenders no longer are permitted to hop in front of driving players and fall down once the shooter begins the process of pulling up for a floater or layup, Wiggins could blow away opponents with his attacks.

Wouldn’t that be fun to watch?

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Marshall Plumlee, 6-11 redshirt sophomore, Duke

2012-13 stats: 0.1 points, 0.6 rebounds, 0.1 assists

It’s already pretty well established that Duke is trending toward installing 6-9 Amile Jefferson in what amounts to the “center” position. Somebody’s got to guard the other team’s big guy, and it isn’t likely to be Rodney Hood or Jabari Parker.
But this is a team that can rank with pretty much anyone from point guard to power forward, and thus is one with legitimate NCAA championship ambitions. According to Chris Summerville of DukeReport.com, who observed the Blue Devils during last weekend’s open practice, Jefferson has added a significant amount of muscle to his frame. But we saw how North Carolina struggled against legit size when forced to position James Michael McAdoo as a center. If Duke is to contend for a national title with Michigan State, Kentucky and Arizona, among others, it’ll need someone who truly is a big man, who doesn’t just play the big-man positions.

The short list for that job is pretty much limited to Plumlee, who is tall enough for the job but has yet to demonstrate much more than that because he was buried on the depth chart and held back by injury.

Neither is an issue now. Duke needs to be able to put him in games and expect Plumlee to guard his position, to rebound adequately and not do anything damaging when the ball touches his hands. It’s really not a lot to ask. No one’s expecting him to be Mason Plumlee, or even former Akron star Zeke Marshall. He just has to be adequate, and that could be enough.

5

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A.J. Hammons, 7-0 sophomore, Purdue

2012-13 stats: 10.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, 2.0 blocks You won’t see

Hammons’ name in the first-round mock draft compiled by DraftExpress.com for either 2014 or 2015. You know whose fault that is? It’s certainly not Jonathan Givony, who’s in charge of those lists. It’s Hammons.
He is the one who has to prove how much being a future first-rounder will matter to him, because he certainly has the physical attributes that would suggest he should be capable of being a future pro.
He is tall, he is long, he can move, he has decent hands. He has the stable base to consistently gain low-post position, and he gets his hands on opponents' shots at a reasonable clip.
What he hasn’t done to this point in his college career, what he didn’t do often beforehand, is play the game like it truly matters to him. There are references to a lack of overall intensity in just about any scouting report you’ll find on Hammons. It’s not uncommon to encounter centers who play the game merely because they are tall and athletic, and not because they truly love it. And it’s not uncommon for such players to be tagged as disappointments as a result.
If we’re being completely honest here, it’s also true that such players often wind up on NBA rosters making a fair amount of money just for growing into that particular body type. So Hammons might not need to fall in love with basketball in order to make a living at it.
If he is going to make it worth his while, though, if Purdue is to turn around from a disappointing 2012-13 season, Hammons will have to show that he is more than just a tall guy, that he’s a basketball player. If he does, he’ll be a good one.

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Gary Harris, 6-4 sophomore, Michigan State

2012-13 season: 12.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.4 assists

His freshman year was terrific, but it was not sensational. Harris could have been a lottery pick, but not a top-five pick. He was among his team’s leaders in scoring, but did not rank with the leaders in the Big Ten or nationally.

So there’s plenty more that Harris can accomplish. He’s that good.

His inability to fully ignite was not entirely Harris’ fault. It might not even have been largely his fault. He was bothered for most of the season by a persistent shoulder injury. That he was able to shoot 46 percent from the field and 41 percent from 3-point range while playing hurt said a lot about his talent and determination. He also suffered from the team’s general lack of passing skill; coach Tom Izzo has noted that the team’s negative assist/turnover ratio was more a product of poor assist totals than overabundant turnovers.

Harris is a terrific defender who excelled at that end of the court no matter which position he was assigned to challenge.

The presence of Michigan State in the discussion about this season’s most logical championship contenders is in large part an investment in Harris’ talent. There’s every reason to believe a healthy Harris will attack more frequently on offense, shoot more readily, make a greater impact. He shot only 98 free throws last season, far below the total that a scorer with his ballhandling ability should be accumulating. It was understandable that he was not eager to be contacted last season. Now, it’s a must.

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Chris Jones, 5-11 junior guard, Louisville

2012-13 season: NJCAA player of the year at Northwest Florida

Who has been waiting longer to show what he can do as a Division I basketball player? Who ever has waited longer? Jones committed to attend Tennessee in January of 2010. Louisville is scheduled to play its first game Nov. 9.

So that means 1,384 days will have passed from the time Jones initially decided where he would play college basketball before he finally winds up on the court.

Along the way, he became a two-time junior college All-American and the national player of the year, and he changed his commitment from the Vols to the Cardinals following the coaching change at UT. He arrives in Louisville at an ideal moment, with a vacancy at point guard opening after Peyton Siva helped the program claim its third national title and with a talented team surrounding him should he win the job.

But yeah, he’s going to have to win the job. Russ Smith wants more point-guard minutes to help him prepare for the NBA. Freshman Terry Rozier will be pushing to start, as well, after spending last season in prep school.

Pitino has raved about Jones since landing him, most recently suggesting his new playmaker has a “competitive disorder” because he is so consumed with being the best he can be. It’s the sort of quality that could make Jones immediately successful at Louisville and keep the Cardinals among the contenders for the national championship.

But the transition from juco to Division I is rarely comfortable, and Pitino can be particularly demanding with his point guards. Jones will have a lot to manage as he begins his career as a major-college player. He averaged more than 20 points a game last season and twice led Northwest Florida to the national title game.

But he never won it. Louisville would like to see him go one better as a Cardinal.